Howard Webb

[Leo No.8]

Absolutely woeful yesterday - I'm surprised no-one seems to have mentioned his performance, because I believe in hindsight he was he wrong man to referee that game.

 

Rarely in my whole time watching football have I seen a referee give so many 50/50 decisions in the direction of one team. At one point, he waved away a foul on Kewell, then 10 seconds later blew for the exact same foul on Richardson, identical in every way; that was to be the pattern throughout the game.

 

He bottled the pen, because you could see Giggs made contact with Kewell inside the area from where I was in The Main Stand, but he had an absolutely perfect view from the position a ref takes for a corner, one from which you couldn't possibly fail to see it. Kewell was going nowhere and it was idiotic by Giggs, but regardless it was a penalty.

 

At one stage Sissoko was down with a head injury, for which you are supposed to stop play immediately, however Mr Webb kindly allowed United to play on from a promising position until Rooney's shot was blocked, then stopped the play as soon as we broke out with the ball.

 

There were plenty of other incidents I could pick out, but one I believe actually led to a serious injury; if Mr Webb hadn't been either so incompetant, or so eager to give United an advantage, then Alan Smith wouldn't have been hurt so badly.

After having strictly ensuring the Liverpool wall observed the 10 yards for Giggs' free-kick, he waved away Riise's complaints and allowed Smith to be just 5 yards away when the ball was touched to the side.

By the time Riise struck his shot, Smith was practically on top of him, and the full force smashed into his leg. How on earth he allowed that to be taken without moving Smith back I'll never know.

 

The reason I would want to see Webb not given further games of this magnitude is I imagine certain comments made by Alex Ferguson in the press influenced his performance. To me, unless Webb has a season ticket at Old Trafford which is very unlikely, his performance was badly effected by him trying too hard not to be influenced by the crowd. I believe he was deliberately giving the benefit of the doubt to the away team wherever possible, which really is very poor practice indeed, and the sign of a weak man incapable of reffing at the top level.

Edited February 19, 2006 by Leo No.8

[ricflairandy]

Rarely in my whole time watching football have I seen a referee give so many 50/50 decisions in the direction of one team. At one point, he waved away a foul on Kewell, then 10 seconds later blew for the exact same foul on Richardson, identical in every way; that was to be the pattern throughout the game.

 

 

you dont watch any chelsea games?

[Beardsley]

Think he did OK in the first half, but in the second half he lost it completely.

Told my mate Sir Whiskeybreath most have had a word with him during halftime.

[anny road]

he wasnt great but I have seen alot worse this season

[muleskinner]

Absolutely woeful yesterday - I'm surprised no-one seems to have mentioned his performance, because I believe in hindsight he was he wrong man to referee that game.

 

Rarely in my whole time watching football have I seen a referee give so many 50/50 decisions in the direction of one team. At one point, he waved away a foul on Kewell, then 10 seconds later blew for the exact same foul on Richardson, identical in every way; that was to be the pattern throughout the game.

 

He bottled the pen, because you could see Giggs made contact with Kewell inside the area from where I was in The Main Stand, but he had an absolutely perfect view from the position a ref takes for a corner, one from which you couldn't possibly fail to see it. Kewell was going nowhere and it was idiotic by Giggs, but regardless it was a penalty.

 

At one stage Sissoko was down with a head injury, for which you are supposed to stop play immediately, however Mr Webb kindly allowed United to play on from a promising position until Rooney's shot was blocked, then stopped the play as soon as we broke out with the ball.

 

There were plenty of other incidents I could pick out, but one I believe actually led to a serious injury; if Mr Webb hadn't been either so incompetant, or so eager to give United an advantage, then Alan Smith wouldn't have been hurt so badly.

After having strictly ensuring the Liverpool wall observed the 10 yards for Giggs' free-kick, he waved away Riise's complaints and allowed Smith to be just 5 yards away when the ball was touched to the side.

By the time Riise struck his shot, Smith was practically on top of him, and the full force smashed into his leg. How on earth he allowed that to be taken without moving Smith back I'll never know.

 

The reason I would want to see Webb not given further games of this magnitude is I imagine certain comments made by Alex Ferguson in the press influenced his performance. To me, unless Webb has a season ticket at Old Trafford which is very unlikely, his performance was badly effected by him trying too hard not to be influenced by the crowd. I believe he was deliberately giving the benefit of the doubt to the away team wherever possible, which really is very poor practice indeed, and the sign of a weak man incapable of reffing at the top level.

 

Disagree, he did well and didn't start flashing cards around early like most refs do. To suggest he favoured Utd is ludicrous, particularly when he didn't book Harry Kewell

.

[Guest FrankH]

He was shocking alright. Especially on 50-50 decisions as you said, everything went their way.

[Guest Kev]

A lot of 50/50 decisions appeared to go to the Mancs, but in general I thought Webb did alright.

 

What I didn't know about him is that he's a copper

[Stevie H]

what did he book carragher for?

[Guest Kev]

what did he book carragher for?

 

Dissent in a high pitched voice ?

[muleskinner]

what did he book carragher for?

 

Dissent, if he hadn't moaned he would have got away with it I think. The ban would have happened eventually, hopefully Agger is fit for next week.

[Earl Hafler]

Ronaldo's dive and then looking puzzled when the freekick was given.

 

The ref made a few good decisions but there were many more that he got wrong. On one of our freekicks he allowed Neville to be about a yard ahead of the wall.

Edited February 19, 2006 by Big Stuff

[Stevie H]

gotcha. it really wasn't a foul, no wonder carra was complaining.

[Guest Sabre]

I thought that he was giving a lot of 50/50s our way at times though

 

Yeah, he made some mistakes but he's certainly not the worst

[AndyM]

Thought he was alright and tried to let the game flow.

Certainly better than some of the other attention-seeking drama queens who usually ref the big games.

[Guest Kev]

gotcha. it really wasn't a foul, no wonder carra was complaining.

 

Ronadivio was already falling over when Jamie made contact.

[Stevie H]

Ronadivio was already falling over when Jamie made contact.

 

oh absolutely, he was halfway down. poor refereeing that, and we lose carra for the next league game as a result.

[Guest BigChief]

Dissent in a high pitched voice ?

 

So it was descent?

[Liverbobs]

I Think he was swayed by Slur Alex's pre match comments about the referee, I thought Webb was dreadful, glad someone else agrees!

[melia]

Thought he was alright and tried to let the game flow.

Certainly better than some of the other attention-seeking drama queens who usually ref the big games.

I thought he was the worst type of attention seeker - the "I'm the players' friend" type. The game was constantly held up while he over-explained every decision to players who just wanted to get on with the match.

[RaoulD]

I actually quite liked him. He seemed to be the sort of ref who is prepared to allow a degree more physical contact in challenges than others and the game flowed better as a result. Of course he makes mistakes which are then magnified on television and he seemed to adopt a different approach in the second half but I generally preferred him to the card-happy brigade who see football as a non-contact sport.

[Steve101]

A big difference of opinion here. I thought he had a good game yesterday, one of the newer refs, most of whom are quite alright. Yes he makes mistakes,and its easy to pick out individual decisions that were maybe wrong in hindsight, but his overall handling of a potentially difficult game was spot on in my opinion.

[tomasjj]

Absolutely woeful yesterday - I'm surprised no-one seems to have mentioned his performance, because I believe in hindsight he was he wrong man to referee that game.

 

Rarely in my whole time watching football have I seen a referee give so many 50/50 decisions in the direction of one team. At one point, he waved away a foul on Kewell, then 10 seconds later blew for the exact same foul on Richardson, identical in every way; that was to be the pattern throughout the game.

 

He bottled the pen, because you could see Giggs made contact with Kewell inside the area from where I was in The Main Stand, but he had an absolutely perfect view from the position a ref takes for a corner, one from which you couldn't possibly fail to see it. Kewell was going nowhere and it was idiotic by Giggs, but regardless it was a penalty.

 

At one stage Sissoko was down with a head injury, for which you are supposed to stop play immediately, however Mr Webb kindly allowed United to play on from a promising position until Rooney's shot was blocked, then stopped the play as soon as we broke out with the ball.

 

There were plenty of other incidents I could pick out, but one I believe actually led to a serious injury; if Mr Webb hadn't been either so incompetant, or so eager to give United an advantage, then Alan Smith wouldn't have been hurt so badly.

After having strictly ensuring the Liverpool wall observed the 10 yards for Giggs' free-kick, he waved away Riise's complaints and allowed Smith to be just 5 yards away when the ball was touched to the side.

By the time Riise struck his shot, Smith was practically on top of him, and the full force smashed into his leg. How on earth he allowed that to be taken without moving Smith back I'll never know.

 

The reason I would want to see Webb not given further games of this magnitude is I imagine certain comments made by Alex Ferguson in the press influenced his performance. To me, unless Webb has a season ticket at Old Trafford which is very unlikely, his performance was badly effected by him trying too hard not to be influenced by the crowd. I believe he was deliberately giving the benefit of the doubt to the away team wherever possible, which really is very poor practice indeed, and the sign of a weak man incapable of reffing at the top level.

 

 

I think you are spot on. Especially about the 50/50 decisions.

Kewell deserved to be booked earlier, that I will concede.

And like I read from another poster here, the red allowed some physical contact. The problem was that he allowed the mancs to kick the s*** out of our players and lunge into challenges, but when we did it was a free kick.

Very bad game by the ref imo.

[Guz]

Thought he was ok. Good 1st half but not so 2nd. Didn't really notice him that much though which is a good sign. There have been worse ref performances for sure though

[Red]

I dont think you can attribute Smiths injury to Webb's incompetence.

 

Smith was too close, but the impact of the ball hitting his right leg was not the cause of the injury to his left leg. It was a clear case of Smith goin' one way nd his left leg staying put and folding under him... just very bad luck on Smiths part.

[Michael]

I thought he avoided the big decisions, but that helped us too. He could have given a free kick on the edge of the area or even a penalty for Hyppia's challenge on Rooney. It maybe evened up his failing to give us a penalty for Gigg's challenge on Kewell.